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In June, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court struck down a controversial piece of legislation that imposed a contract on Nova Scotia’s 9,300 public school teachers. Justice John A. Keith called the law, known as Bill 75, “vengeful,” “terribly wrong” and ultimately unconstitutional in his ruling.
In February 2017, the Liberal Government under Stephen McNeil passed Bill 75, to bring an end to more than a year of failed contract negotiations between the province and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union. When it was eventually enacted, it stripped the union of its right to strike, the long-service award and imposed a four-year collective agreement along with a three per cent salary increase.
Lawyers for the province argued Bill 75 was essential because three tentative agreements reached between the NSTU’s bargaining team and the province were all voted down by the union’s membership — even though each agreement was recommended for approval by the NSTU. It was after the third failed agreement that the McNeil Liberals introduced Bill 75.
In his judgement, Justice Keith wrote that the terms of the collective agreement imposed by Bill 75 were significantly inconsistent with and worse than the third and final tentative agreement that the province said was the by-product of good faith bargaining.
Justice Keith called Bill 75 an overzealous but misguided attempt at fiscal responsibility - at worst, Bill 75 was punitive a attempt to gain some unrelated, collateral benefit related to ongoing negotiations with other public service unions at the expense of NSTU.
This decision raised questions about another Liberal law, Bill 148, which imposed wage restraint throughout the public service and also scrapped a retirement bonus known as the long-service award. The Bill imposes a wage pattern impacting thousands of public sectors workers, including nurses.
The Nova Scotia Federation of Labour and eight public sector unions filed a legal challenge against Bill 148 back in 2017, but that case went into suspended animation pending the Court of Appeal decision. If the labour organizations revive the Bill 148 lawsuit there may be even greater repercussions for the government.
Premier Tim Houston promised during last summer’s provincial election campaign that, if elected, the Tories would repeal Bill 148. More recently, they’ve backed away from that plan.
In May, Deputy Premier Allan MacMaster said that Bill 148, passed in 2015, was “no longer impacting the negotiations that we want to have with our unions,” and that the law was “time-limited legislation.” MacMaster did not close the door on rescinding Bill 148, he made it clear there was no plan to follow through on the end-of-campaign pledge.
The eight unions recently launched a letter writing campaign imploring government to keep their 2021 promise to rescind the Bill. Following the decision on Bill 75, government is more prepared to talk about Bill 148. The Federation of Labour is working on behalf of eight unions, including the NSTU, that opposed the Bill.
The Premier says, people who are working in Nova Scotia should be fairly compensated and, where they’re part of a union, that should come as a result of a union negotiation. This government says it wants to be different than the last government – not antagonistic with labour.
The president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union Paul Wozney said his union will meet with its legal counsel to discuss any fallout from the ruling on Bill 75. Justice Keith has said the NSTU is entitled to recover costs incurred to go before the court.
